


Angels Are Watching Over You

by maeone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:56:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maeone/pseuds/maeone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel watches over the Winchesters, protecting them from the dangers they don't know exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels Are Watching Over You

The angel would watch over them, sometimes. Like he had long ago, when he had watched Dean rake leaves into bags.

He hadn’t talked to Dean then, and he didn’t talk to them now. He couldn’t. It was forbidden.

Not that that had stopped him from doing things in the past. But he truly couldn’t now. He could only watch from afar.

He had watched as Dean had bumped into Lisa one day, and they had fallen in love all over again. He had watched as Sam had found happiness, finally becoming a lawyer.

He had watched it all. For the past fifty years, he had watched the Winchesters whenever he could, protecting them from the few demons that still hunted them out despite Abbadon’s orders, healing them when they didn’t know they needed it. Ten years ago, Dean had developed lung cancer, and Castiel had healed him before he had begun to notice the first symptoms. He was forbidden to talk to them, but he couldn’t just let them die.

Admittedly, he watched Dean more than he watched Sam. He couldn’t help it. He watched Dean and thought of stolen nights long ago, spent tangled in the sheets and each other, back when Dean loved him and knew who he was. 

He still loved Dean. He had loved Dean since he had first raised him from hell. He had loved Dean when he was lying, when he was in purgatory with him, and when he was human. He had loved Dean when he had erased his memory. He hadn’t loved Dean for all eternity, but he would love Dean for the rest of it. There was no denying it.

Dean had loved him, too. Dean had whispered it to him in bed at night, when Dean had first found him in purgatory, and so many more times. But Dean didn’t know that. Dean could never know that. Dean loved Lisa now. He had no idea Castiel existed and he didn’t believe in angels, or anything supernatural.

The only thing he could do to show his love for Dean now was to heal him in secret.

He did watch over Sam as well, of course. He had smote more demons for Sam than he had ever done for Dean, and though he hadn’t cured Sam of cancer, he had healed his wife, Katie, after her pregnancy had gone horribly wrong.

He watched over them, and he remembered how they used to be, and he marveled at how they could be so different now.

Of course, they weren’t completely unscarred. Sometimes Sam would wake up screaming, thinking he was back in the cage. Sometimes Dean would feel grief greater than he recalled ever feeling, like he had felt when Kevin died, or when he had lost Sam for the first time (he didn’t even know who Kevin was), or dream about being in the arms of another.

And they had some physical scars, too. Castiel had healed most of them, but not all. That would be suspicious—people in their thirties didn’t have zero scars.

But they didn’t have their anti-possession tattoos. The handprint he had burned into Dean’s skin was long gone, as was the scar Sam had used long ago to push Lucifer out of his head.

Sometimes he had trouble getting over how different they were than how they had been. They were happy; they weren’t weighed down with all the responsibilities they’d had—stopping the apocalypse, killing ghosts and monsters, trying to keep everyone alive. 

Those responsibilities had disappeared along with their knowledge of how to kill a vampire, exorcise a demon, and sew up a bullet wound.

They had disappeared when he had erased their memories after they had saved the world for the last time. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He could remember it now, easily, like it had just happened.

He remembered the realization dawning on their faces when they had realized what he was about to do, how they had begged him not to, their confusion after he had done it. He had had to make up a story for them, fill in the large blanks that now existed.

He had made them both dropouts, Sam from college and Dean from high school. They had traveled the country together, working odd jobs wherever they could find them. Their mother had died in a house fire when they were both young, and their father had gone missing not long after. They were raised in foster homes.

And then he had sent them on their way, to live their new lives, after healing most of their scars and removing all evidence of anything supernatural from their lives—the guns, the salt, the knives.

He had returned to heaven. God had finally returned and had called all the angels back home, forgiving them all of their past sins. He had told Castiel that He would have to kill the Winchesters—He said they had too much knowledge and that He couldn’t let them live, knowing that, if they had wanted to, they could cast all the angels out of heaven.

So he had cleansed their memories and erased that knowledge, and they had been allowed to live.

Now he just watched them. He had watched them grow old—they were now well into their eighties.

And, now, finally, it was time for Sam and Dean Winchester to die. Death himself had come to tell Castiel. Everyone knew that he still had a soft spot for them.

He had almost fought against their deaths, but then realized—why bother? They were old; it was their time. Death had promised they would go peacefully, with all the honor they deserved.

He was at Sam’s bedside now. It was Sam’s turn first. He was dying in his sleep, as Dean would do in just a few minutes.

God had said he could give them their memories back, just for these few moments before their death. He had considered not doing it. Would it really be a kindness, remembering everything that they had seen and done? He had eventually decided that, yes, it would be. Even if they hated him for it, they would at least know who they really were.

So he gave Sam his memories back. Sam’s eyes, clouded with cataracts as they were, flew open, and he immediately regretted his choice. He could see Sam’s mind becoming more and more tortured as he got his past back. 

But then Sam surprised him—he thanked him. And then he died, memories intact, a smile on his face. He had been wrong. Sam had enjoyed knowing who he was, and he had enjoyed all the baggage that came with the name Sam Winchester.

Dean’s death went slightly different. When he began to remember, the first thing he did upon seeing Castiel’s face was kiss him. It was different than it had been, all those years ago, but time had not lessened their love for each other. It was the fact that Dean was only just starting to remember him that made it less passionate.

Then Dean had said something that he had never thought he would hear again.

“I love you, Cas.” And then he died.

Just like that, the Winchesters had at last died for good. It felt strange, to him, knowing he wouldn’t be watching over them anymore and that they were in heaven, and that they knew who he was. He continued watching over their children and their grandchildren, but it wasn’t the same.

But he didn’t have to watch over them anymore, in secret. He could visit them in heaven now, where they all belonged.


End file.
